Study says teachers experience workplace bullying more than 3x as often as other workers

“Educators experience workplace bullying at a much higher rate — more that three times as high — than other workers,” say researchers in the newly published 2017 Educator Quality of Work Life Survey, released by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Badass Teachers Association. This year, 830 AFT members, educators in two New York school districts “where educator unions have built strong collaborative labor-management practices on the quality of their work life,” and an additional 4,000 educators responded to their 30-question survey.

Most educators surveyed reported that their schools have workplace harassment policies prohibiting bullying, yet bullying still happens at a high frequency. Stress from workplace bullying is compounded by large workloads, feelings of having to be “always on,” a lack of resources, changing expectations, deficient building conditions, equipment and staff shortages, and insufficient time to prepare and collaborate with colleagues — in other words, limited feelings of respect, control, and influence in their work.

What’s more: “in 2015, 34 percent of our respondents noted that their mental health was ‘not good’ for seven or more of the past 30 days. In 2017, among the more than 4,000 respondents to the public version of our survey, that number had climbed to 58 percent,” explain researchers, noting that the presidential election took place in between those years.

The result: “teachers reported having poor mental health for 11 or more days per month at twice the rate of the general U.S. workforce. They also reported lower-than-recommended levels of health outcomes and sleep per night,” according to the study.

When educators don’t have healthy and productive environments, students don’t either. “Districts that fail to recognize the importance of educator well-being may be faced with higher turnover, more teacher and staff health issues, and greater burnout, all of which leads to higher costs, less stability for kids and, ultimately, lower student achievement,” say the survey researchers.

A better way

Respondents overwhelmingly said that strong educator unions are vital to supportive learning environments. “We can ensure safe, welcoming, supportive learning environments for kids when communities, parents, educators and administrators work together to build supportive working environments for teachers and school staff…. Forthcoming research from Saul Rubinstein and John McCarthy shows that union-district partnerships produce increased school-level collaborative environments and, in turn, improved student outcomes,” say the researchers. Educators in the two surveyed school districts report collaborative environments, including teacher mentoring programs and peer evaluations. Teachers in these districts were bullied by supervisors less frequently, found work to be less stressful than teachers in other districts, felt more respected by supervisors, had fewer physical stress symptoms, and were less likely to plan to leave teaching.

Take Your Dignity Back
If you feel like you’re stuck in a big rut that’s destroying your life, learn how to reverse the damage. 

Right now, you wish you could just tell your bully at work to knock it off, report the problem to management, and show the bully how childish he or she’s behaving. At best, the bully’s sidetracking the goals of the organization. At worst, the bully’s threatening or maybe even destroying your life by abusing you: your health, your family, your career, your finances, and your happiness.

You know it’s not a personality conflict. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not thin-skinned. It’s downright abuse. You expected your work environment to support you to do the work you were hired to do. You expected to be treated with dignity and respect.

The organization doesn’t care. They think it’s in their best interest to ignore the problem — meaning you — and make you go away. When you speak up, you’re the problem. You’re treasonous. If you fight them, they’ll fight harder.

Meanwhile, you’re stressed out and angry, and it gets worse the longer the bullying goes on, making you an easier target for the bully. Your physical and mental health are depleted. You consider or take stress leave. 

Find out what workplace bullying is, why it happens, what's worked — and what hasn't worked — for hundreds of other workplace bullying targets, and how to start the path to healing in this comprehensive online course drawing from the greatest minds in workplace bullying.

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